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Main » Articles » Prismatic Posse

Prismatic Posse

Abe Sargent
Posted on December 13, 2015
 Reddit

A lot of cards in Magic play around with colors for various effects. The colorless devoid mechanic in Battle for Zendikar got me thinking about a lot of the history and traditions of playing around and shifting colors. I wanted to explore these color changes in an article. From Crimson Wisps to Shade's Breath, there are a lot of interesting and funky ways to shift colors.

The color-based mechanic used to be seen a lot more in the olden days, for a variety of reasons. A lot of old cards played with color or shifting them to things like Sleight of Mind. From Limited Edition Alpha, you had the almost meaningless -Lace cycle, like Thoughtlace and Purelace. These were later supplemented by Prismatic Lace. Shoot, long ago, I even had a U/R deck that looked like this:

Laces and Blasts ? Casual | Abe Sargent

This was the first time I realized the synergy of cards, and I’d been playing for like two weeks before I built this deck. You could play Thoughtlace on any card and then Red Elemental Blast it to destroy it! That’s awesome! Forget card advantage or similar concepts; you can destroy anything! Note that you can also Lace and then Blast a spell to counter it as well!

Prismatic Lace
Obviously, this isn’t the sort of deck I’d recommend anymore, but early cards played havoc with colors. The earliest “hoser” cards were ones that attacked a color’s lands or color—cards like Flashfires and Anarchy, Karma or Light of Day. These cards ended the game. My very first tournament entry was for an Alpha Gauntlet of Might. There were more than twenty people in the tournament, and I had built a mono-red concoction. I learned a lot about Magic from this deck and this tournament (one example is that the deck featured four Goblin Balloon Brigades, and I had them on almost every starting turn—long before others were dropping stuff, I dealt a lot of damage with them). This bad boy had four Flashfires in the sideboard. I still recall using Flashfires to blow out a white-playing opponent. There was no coming back. So having ways to dodge out of these hosers made them more interactive than you might normally think.

Take a card like Anarchy. You are rocking G/W, and about sixty percent of your creatures are white. After sideboarding, I drop Anarchy. Oh noes! Game over, right? And then you pay 1 green mana and play . . . Sylvan Paradise. Any number of target creatures become green. All of your white stuff turns green, and you can now survive my Anarchy. Yay!

Remember that Flashfires? The very next tournament, I played a similar deck since it had won. I played that Flashfires after sideboarding against a W/U player, who suddenly looked really happy. He sided in Magical Hack and played it to turn my Flashfires against my own Mountains! Fiddling with this stuff was an important part of the process back then. (I also learned about metagames in that loss and planned for other decks or strategies rather than just tossing in some hosers.)

And this is something that has largely been left behind. Hosers are now pretty gentle and don’t have the bad-beats feel of Karma. You don’t need to Sleight of Mind an opponent’s Anarchy or drop a Sea Kings' Blessing in order to deal damage through a Circle of Protection: Black. You don’t need to play Ghostly Flame. You are good to go already. I’ve seen Ersatz Gnomes be played heavily at times.

Aisling Leprechaun
So cards that play with color can feel a little old school. Alchor's Tomb? Dream Coat? Aisling Leprechaun? It’s just odd to see. But that lets you tinker with some of these spells and concepts today. (For example, take the cycle of instants you saw here that change as many target creatures as you want for 1 mana to that color—like Touch of Darkness for black. You can run that with Horobi, Death's Wail or use one to trigger your whole team easily in a heroic deck.)

We’ve seen some more recent attempts to play with colors to be too powerful (like Painter's Servant and Iona, Shield of Emeria) in Casual Land or elsewhere. So you can bring back these older cards to evoke a sense of the old school of color.

You could combine some of these cards with a variety of color-based cards like Teferi's Moat. Choose a color when you play it, such as blue. Now all blue stuff can’t attack you unless it has flying. And if someone really feels the need to begin to look your way, just play Sea Kings' Blessing. You can use it to pump a Chameleon Spirit out of nowhere to kill someone. (Every opposing creature is now blue or whatever you chose.) Did you use Circle of Affliction on black? Touch of Darkness a whole team to shoot the controller.

A card like Pentarch Paladin or such would be a great addition to a color-based theme. Playing G/W and running the Leprechaun? Name green!

You could also play this nicely with protection effects. Many decks already have a fun layer of protection as part of its design, and layering in these additional elements of color would be a useful addition. Here’s a mega-quick example:

Pestilence-ing Your Horde ? Casual | Abe Sargent

Pestilence
This is a version of a traditional Pestilence deck that combines it with creatures with protection from black. Because most creatures are protected from damage from the Pestilence (or from the Withering Wisps), you can keep those removal options on the table without worrying about hurting your stuff. I’m running it with stuff like White Knight, Cemetery Gate, Akroma, Angel of Wrath, and Karmic Guide. Since your deck needs protection-from-black creatures anyway, there’s no reason lot to toss in a pair of Touch of Darkness as a surprise. No matter what color of creatures your opponent thought he or she was bringing to the table, now he or she is black. Your pro-black stuff is suddenly going to swing through a defense from nowhere or blast someone out of the red zone.

Color used to be used in odd and wonky ways. There used to be a very powerful Vintage-tournament-winning deck that was built around Deathlace (or Prismatic Lace) that would turn opposing permanents black. Then, you would use Reap to pull back a bunch of your cards from your graveyard at once, and with four Reaps, the next Reap would recur the first one played and others. (And you would recur stuff like Black Lotus and then sac it over and over again for a ton of mana.)

Reap and a Lace—who would have thought?

Did you like some of these instant tricks? Maybe you want something a bit more permanent. I get it! Check out stuff like Shifting Sky and Swirl the Mists. Do their permanent natures better fit your deck concept? Take Swirl the Mists as an example. Here’s a spark to unlock it

Swirling Hosing Machine ? Casual | Abe Sargent

Swirl the Mists
The goal is here is simple: Take a bunch of cards that are good and have a variety of anti-color elements layered into the card, such as Karmic Guide. Now focus all of those effects on one color with a Swirl the Mists. You can use the Swirl to focus hate on a single player at the table. I just tossed together some quick examples—you could easily do better if you looked. Obviously, a card like Cerulean Wyvern or Voice of Duty won’t make the cut in a lot of your decks, so find the good stuff.

How about Shifting Sky instead? You could add Dream Tides to a deck that rocks Shifting Sky and turn all stuff green. Now creatures will never untap.

You could also use a Swirl to protect your stuff, rather than hose others, if that’s your thing. You can do the same with Shifting Sky if you want. You could layer them out and change who is saved with cards like Inundate, Mass Calcify, and Breaching Leviathan.

Want to head out of blue? Okay! How about Sudden Demise? It’s a major board wiper for your foes if all of their creatures are now one color. And this stuff continues. You can play around with Hunter's Ambush. Maybe you want to turn a bunch of your stuff green to keep them dealing damage. Or you could do something really, really old school. Let’s finish this thang up.

Of Leprechauns and Lures ? Casual | Abe Sargent

The goal of this deck is to swing with a Leprechaun with a Lure on it. And then you’ll turn the entre opposing force green permanently. Because the color change happens prior to damage, if the Leprechaun has protection from green, all is well, and the newly-green creatures can’t touch him. Otherwise, it’s smashed Lucky Charms for everyone. The deck then has various green hosers that should prove useful: Voice of Duty, Sword of Feast and Famine, Sword of Body and Mind, and the Circle of Protection: Green. Because of how wonky the Circle can be, I tossed in Hurricane as a way to sweep the sky and to kill players. (Just use the Circle to keep yourself safe, and your sole flying creature, the Voice, is immune to the Hurricane’s damage.) And that’s a funky Leprechaun deck!

There are a ton of ways to play around with color. From Prismatic Lens to Niveous Wisps, there are a lot of directions you can mine. So grab your shovel, and start loading some coal. You’ll find a deep vein here.

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TAGS articles, strategy, casual, abe sargent, decklist, prismatic

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